Tuesday, 28 August 2012

I've been in love with feather nails ever since I saw them on Chloe's Nails over a year ago! I've tried many many times since then to recreate something similar but always failed miserably. Well when I was in the craft aisle at my favourite junk shop recently searching for anything I could stick to my nails, I spotted these purple feathers and knew I'd be attempting the 'feather nail' again.

This time I finally succeeded and now all I want is MORE FEATHERS! It is very tricky to get a feather stuck to your nail but once it's there you'll never want to take it off.

Sunday, 26 August 2012

We probably all remember Ciate's last great invention, the Caviar Manicure and Imma try really hard not to bang on about those emails and that drama. Well they're back again with the Velvet Manicure and I'm sure we're all familiar with Ciate's MO of taking something that has been done before, packaging it in a pretty bottle with a bow on top and selling it at 9250% the price of the exact same thing bought elsewhere. I actually did the maths on that one! So you won't be shocked to hear that you can get the Velvet look for a teeny fraction of the price at home.

In all fairness, I watched Ciate's Velvet Nails tutorial video and it does look like their product is finer and more like a powder than the Flock I bought from Goldleaf Craft Supplies on eBay, but I doubt that anyone will be looking close enough to tell.

Friday, 24 August 2012

I've been meaning to do some galaxy nails for aaaaages! Whenever I'm in the process of doing this nail art, I'm always super disappointed with the way it looks so sometimes I give up before I've even finished. I have to remember that it never looks good until that final layer of glitter goes on and you take a proper look at them from further away.

Wednesday, 22 August 2012

This is the second interesting polish from my Nail Polish Direct order that I mentioned last week, W7's Salt N Pepper. I think it's odd that this polish is part of the summer collection as it looks quite wintery to me. It practically looks like snow on my nails! Either way, I still love it and it's the perfect way to wear white polish without it looking like you just Tipp-Exxed your nails!

I used four coats for these swatches followed by two top coats of NYC. It was silly of me not to use a plain white base first, but I wanted to give the polish a proper try to see how many coats it would take by itself.

I can't find Salt and Pepper on the site any more but here is a link to W7's Summer Collection where they still have the other two glitter polishes - Mosaic and Lava Flow.

Sunday, 19 August 2012

I passed a matte black Lotus on the road today and immediately knew that these would be my nails tonight! I totally forgot I had this matte black polish until I saw that car and since I've never done a glossy on matte mani I thought I'd give it a go.

I used Urban Outfitters Matte Black as a base coat and then took my striping brush and dipped it in to some NYC top coat for the glossy details.

Saturday, 18 August 2012

Sorry that you've had to pester and pester me for this. I always say it, but I'm such a slacker when it comes to making tutorials. This is by far my favourite tutorial that I've made. Editing was minimal and I managed to get most of the shots I needed first time round without any camera or other equipment disasters. I think tutorial making is, like almost everything, one of those instances where practice makes perfect. I'm learning from my mistakes and my videos are getting better for it.

Hopefully this will answer any questions you might have had about how I apply glequins. Here is a link to the Glitters on Born Pretty Store and don't forget you'll get 10% off your order with my code, SA5X31.

Thursday, 16 August 2012

These are the nails I will be wearing to The Nails Show on Saturday, provided they haven't chipped/fallen off/been picked off by then because I might not get a chance to redo them before the event. Although it's not like I'm gonna be short of nail supplies where I'm going!
I know that lots of you are going to the event and I can't wait to meet you if you are gonna be there! I'm not exhibitioning in case some of you thought that's why I was going. I'm just gonna be a regular Joe strolling around so if you see me, come say hi! I'll try to wear something distinctive and I'll tweet what I look like so I'm kinda easy to spot!

I wanted to do some of my designs that people have responded to best and that really marked milestones in this blog I'm kind of best known for; my studded nail, the gradient and now glequin honeycomb.

The base colour is A-England Galahad and I used Barry M Gold Foil for the gradient and stamping (Bundle Monster BM322).

Wednesday, 15 August 2012

I haven't been my usual unproductive self this evening. I've managed to book my coach to London on Saturday for The Nails Show, make a YouTube video AND paint this design on my nails! I've literally been dropping off to sleep all day in the most inconvenient places, so I was determined to get an early night but that idea went out the window as soon as I hit the internet!

Tuesday, 14 August 2012

W7 is a brand that I've loved for a very very long time. I'm all about the budget brands and I really think that W7 is the best budget brand out there. It also happens to be one of my top 5 brands EVER! I've just looked through my archives to see how far me and W7 go back. Amazingly, W7 Black was one of the polishes I used on the very first day of The Nailasaurus' existence, so I guess you could say there's some history there!

The polishes retail for around £2 but special ones like the shatters cost a little more. The brand isn't sold in any of the normal places you'd look for polish in Britain such as Superdrug and Boots but I nearly always see it in The Original Factory Shop and BM Bargains. Even in those places that do stock it, it's always uncertain whether you will actually find a full collection on the shelves or just odds and ends that have been dug out of a corner in the stockroom!

Recently, Nail Stories posted a swatch of one of W7's new polishes that she found on Nail Polish Direct so of course I had to check out the site. There are literally hundreds of W7 polishes on there! I never really buy nail polish online but I got so excited when I saw these that I just went for it. I ordered two of these interesting glittery polishes - Mosaic and Salt N Pepper and even ordered my fourth bottle of W7 Purple Paradise which just so happens to be my favourite polish of all time. I think. I really need to make a definitive list and get it laminated!

Monday, 13 August 2012

Helloooo!! I feel like today marks some momentous return! I got back from my camping holiday on Friday but only had time in between for one quick post on Saturday because I've just been super busy with... um... I don't know what. I'm one of those people that is just never bored. I'm always doing something even when I'm doing nothing, if you know what I mean?!

I finally had some time for a 'proper manicure' this evening and, despite getting very distracted watching Wilfred, managed to put it in to a blog post!

Thursday, 9 August 2012

Despite my obsession with skulls, I've never attempted a sugar skull before. Now I know why, they're very tricky to paint on to your nails! I don't really love this outcome but for a first try, it'll do!

Tuesday, 7 August 2012

I'm very excited to bring you my first ever Polish Days um... day! If you haven't heard of Polish Days it's a great initiative organised by Hannah from Polly Polish. You can subscribe to the Polish Days emails and every month, Hannah comes up with a theme, gives us a date to publish and all the bloggers participating post their manis in sync. So you'll probably be seeing a lot of these posts in your reader right now!

Enough of the introductions, today's theme is the Olympics. I already posted one Olympics mani so I was competing with myself to come up with a better mani for today. I think today's mani steals the gold!

Monday, 6 August 2012

These are the nails that I'm wearing as I depart for my holiday. No doubt, they'll be off in a few days as the pick factor sets in but I'm taking a few nail supplies with me so I won't be naked nailed! I have a few posts scheduled for the week, including one I'm very excited about tomorrow, so you probably won't even notice I'm gone!

I reorganised my polish collection on the weekend as it had started to spread throughout the room and I wanted to get it all in one place! 28 bottles ended up in the recycling pile. They were either ones that I'd never used, would never use again or nearly empties. The lovely Wendy on Twitter suggested that I mix a few together to create new colours a.k.a Frankens - new polishes made up of the leftovers of others!

This 'Frankencherry' is one of the outcomes. I couldn't tell you what colours are in here, I just know that the resulting 'cherry with a subtle shimmer' is absolutely ace!

Sunday, 5 August 2012

I'm headed off on my summer holiday tomorrow - nowhere too glamorous, we're just packing up the car and going camping in West Wales - so it's been a very hectic weekend of preparation. I haven't even packed my case yet and we're leaving in the morning!

While I was checking off my 'to-do before holiday' list, I came across a note that said '@Lacquerologist's Nail Art Competition' and I thought I must have missed the deadline by now but it turns out the deadline is tonight so I squeezed in a bit of time to create my entry last night!

The criteria for the competition is that the manicure must be based on one of the days from the Abstract Nail Art Challenge. I chose to do Lines and came up with this staggered multi colour idea. I kinda wish I'd stuck to one colour palette but I'm still very pleased with this satisfactorily abstract outcome!

I won't list the colours because there are at least 15 in the mix and I honestly can't remember what they all are! The bottle in my hand is Barry M Blueberry Ice Cream and I'm confident that's the lightest colour on my middle finger.

To get this effect, I painted on the base colour and then used a striping brush to paint on random lines straight from my cuticle to the tip. I then painted some half lines in the gaps and added a bit of glitter on top of a few of them. It's all finished with a few coats of Cult Nails Wicked Fast.

It's true. I've completely plagiarised myself. This mani is very nearly an exact copy of one that I did just 3 weeks ago. What can I say? I love black and I love glequins and I just got dayum love this style of manicure!!

I didn't use a base colour, just a base coat of OPI Nail Envy. I used a W7 Black and a striping brush to create the chevrons at the base of my nail, then filled in the rest of the space using the brush straight from the bottle.

To make the glequins stick, I painted on a coat of clear polish and attached them while it was still tacky using a toothpick dipped in said clear polish to make it tacky.

Wednesday, 1 August 2012

It's been an age since you saw any pink here and even longer since it was a Pink Wednesday so I thought I'd crack out my trusty Rimmel pink and finally try out this stamp. I've always loved newspaper nail art but never managed to successfully recreate it myself so this stamp has had me very excited. I think it's a pretty good alternative to the real thing!